AoS 3 New Rules Discussion

[Reinholt]

3 minutes ago, KrispyXIV said:

I'm hearing you, but you keep suggesting you "cannot" take the unit in question (Gluttons), which is factually untrue.  

You can take them.  They're inconvenienced by the new conherency rules and likely all 6 can't fight.

...which is likely the point. 

There seems to be some sort of unwritten entitlement in your post that assumes all models in a unit are entitled to fight, when in fact the entire point of having coherency and limited reach is that sometimes models will be left out.  

The game is not designed such that only the most optimal choices will ever be made.  No game is - every last one game becomes a mess when played to that particular standard.  

Play the game, assume the assumption is that the intent is that you shouldn't be able to get 100% of large models to fight, and then lobby for a cost appropriate to the result.  

Your post presupposes that "not all models contribute in all combats" is a failure state for the game, as opposed to the design intent.  Try playing to that intent, and then look for adjustments after acclimating to the new normal.  

To be clear, again, it's not "me", I didn't take them.

I am saying if marginal units are already not particularly good, and now you have nerfed them, why would you ever take them? You're bringing a rock to a gunfight here. Shooting is already stronger than melee, monsters and heroes don't have coherency problems in the new edition, and when I point out that taking Gluttons is slow from a play perspective, inefficient for melee, and they were already not good, your answer is that it's working as intended?

That is exceptionally poor game design. "Hey half our units are unbalanced garbage don't take them they have no place in the game sorry you paid money for this trash throw it in the bin" is not how a company should operate, to be blunt.

 

Edit: and before someone brings up competitive vs. narrative, I think this is actually a bigger problem for non-competitive players. The competitive types can self-police and will build armies that can fight. I'm worried about the new kid who loves Sylvaneth and builds a bunch of Kurnoth with swords because they look awesome only to find you can't get half of them into melee and gets absolutely trucked a few games in a row after spending money and just quits after the NPE.

Edited June 22, 2021 by Reinholt

[whispersofblood]

3 minutes ago, Reinholt said:

So as a starting point, I played AGAINST the Ogors, not with them. I'm actually the ****** who took the MSU units of skeletons and Blood Knights and smashed the face of my opponent through the table, essentially.

 

What I am saying is that some of the design changes are going to promote some pretty material negative play experiences. First, taking Gluttons as an example, you CANNOT take them in a small enough unit that coherency is a non-issue (min 6!). Therefore, the only conclusion is literally never take them. I'm not sure if AoS 3 was intended to create a meta where a good 30% of models should not be taken at all and another 30% taken only in min sizes ever, but that appears to be what has happened. I doubt this was intentional.

 

Second, my main complaint is also the slowness. Now that tiny fractions of movement determine both coherency and ability to melee, sorting out basic moves is going to be way slower. And for those of you who say movement trays are a solution, that's only true if your opponent is a tool who doesn't understand if you lock formation, they can respond in kind with a different formation to cripple your ability to melee. Then you have to get off the tray to try to pile in while maintaining coherency next turn anyways. It's just slow all the way down. I'm not saying you can't change how you build an army (you can, sometimes, though some units like Gluttons you literally cannot and probably should not take them without further rules changes), but I am saying that unless everything is 5 or less, the game will be slower. Perhaps WAY slower, depending on circumstance.

That isn't necessarily true though. 6 are less agile than 3 of course. But, they trade off is durability. So they serve a different tactical purpose, think of 6 bulls like you would 30 of a 1 wound infantry unit. You wouldn't expect the bulk of all 30 to fight but they provide bodies after initial contact with the enemy force. 

I think at the end of AoS2 we have trained ourselves to pump points into units to make them bigger and meaner hammers. My reading of the core rules to date suggest that isn't a mindset that is going to work.

3.0 reminds me a lot of 8th edition if you were around for that? The edition started in most places with people playing almost a phalanx v phalanx styles game where the unit with the deepest ranks was effectively unbreakable. 

And eventually evolved into a game requiring high power projection revolving around the best phalanx (see; effective and affordable) a book could produce. Be that shooting or highly mobile combat. 

AoS 3.0 looks basically the same as that evolved version of 8th edition. Deep units of bulls seem alright in that context surrounded by the rest of the OM book. But, 9 is definitely an over investment as it saps your pool of points required for projecting power. 

Anyway as always this is just my opinion and what I see when I look at the rules.

[KrispyXIV]

6 minutes ago, Reinholt said:

Edit: and before someone brings up competitive vs. narrative, I think this is actually a bigger problem for non-competitive players. The competitive types can self-police and will build armies that can fight. I'm worried about the new kid who loves Sylvaneth and builds a bunch of Kurnoth with swords because they look awesome only to find you can't get half of them into melee and gets absolutely trucked a few games in a row after spending money and just quits after the NPE.

Disclaimer - "You" isn't necessarily you specifically, it's just a third party pronoun that sounds less silly than reusing "one" over and over.  

This isn't a "new" issue though for these cases.  In more or less all collectible games, the risk exists for someone to fall in love with and purchase whatever the current bad/non-meta option is.  

And something will always occupy that slot, which will shift with game balance.  

Balance is a process, not a state - but you can't start from "Unit works as designed but does not work as I'm attempting to use it, not as designed."  Of course it won't work that way.  

Giant Disclaimer - Ogors may be terrible.  The unit in question may be overcosted garbage.  But you can't start that discussion and get meaningful results when your starting point is "the new coherency rules don't work!" When they absolutely do, just not the way you expect based on past rules.  

[Andalf]

They’ll start off in a 9 glutton unit... they’ll have a 5 ogor front and lose 4 models, unless you yourself push them in and force the opponent to react to you and pull them into your flanks.  21 D2 attacks and 5 impacts on 4+ is plenty enough to wreck face, and it’s not oppressive fighting 3 units of them at the same time, because you can only take 2 of them.  Everybody has this limitation.  This game is great, probably one of the most immersive versions I’ve played and I was around in 3rd ed WHFB.  It’s forcing real in game decisions and serious list building considerations rather than “all my buffs go here and anything that touches this unit is game over.  If you manage to get lucky and kill it I have 3 more exact replicas.”

Edited June 22, 2021 by Andalf

[Reinholt]

3 minutes ago, KrispyXIV said:

Giant Disclaimer - Ogors may be terrible.  The unit in question may be overcosted garbage.  But you can't start that discussion and get meaningful results when your starting point is "the new coherency rules don't work!" When they absolutely do, just not the way you expect based on past rules.  

That's not an accurate representation of what I said at all, though.

What I specifically said was this:

1. The new coherency rules, by being more intricate about the value of small distances, make the game significantly slower. This is a factual statement, backed up by other people who have started using / thinking about them and by 40k, which I also play.
2. The interaction of >25mm base sizes, coherency for 5+ units, and 1" or less weapon ranges produce some very weird outcomes for units such that taking them in any size larger than 5 is almost certainly going to be sub-optimal in all circumstances because you do not get horde discounts. You pay full price for the damage output of a unit that can never bring that damage output to bear, and because there is not a unit cap, 2x3 will outperform 1x6 in virtually all circumstances even if you literally stand them together as a single "unit".
3. In the cases where unit sizes do not work (Gluttons are a perfect example here because Leadbelchers and Mournfangs both also exist as battleline in better configurations where in the new rules they dominate Gluttons in all facets and thus Gluttons basically should not ever be used), you may have totally obsoleted some units.

If that's game design working as intended, I think someone needs to have a word with GW's game designers about what their customers want, which is probably not materially slower games with less choice of models. If it's not intentional, I suggest they fix it.

If you disagree, I want to know specifically what you disagree with that I said. Do you think the new coherency rules are faster? Do you think it's good for a game where shooting and magic already dominated most melee to have even less efficient melee and more efficient shooting? Do you think the coherency rules are buffing melee in some way I have missed? Do you think people want slower games with less model choice?

I'm genuinely curious what the actual rebuttal here is rather than "git good", because that's not my concern (and my tournament army is shootcast, which is already one of the big winners in the new meta, in my view), rather my concern is I think the impact of the changes will be negative play experience, especially for newer players and less competitive players.

[Andalf]

It’s not about “git good” it’s fundamentally about “things have changed.”  It’s called adapting.

Edited June 22, 2021 by Andalf

[yukishiro1]

When someone says "the new coherency rules don't work" they aren't saying they literally don't work as in you cannot play a game with them. They're saying they don't add something positive to the game, and worse, add something negative.

Even in WHFB, you could fight in two ranks baseline (albeit with less attacks for the second rank). A coherency system that forces some models into a position where they have to be in multiple ranks yet cannot fight in more than one rank seems like a very odd choice, as evidenced by the fact that (to my knowledge) no other edition of either 40k, AOS, or WHFB has ever adopted such a system. I don't think it's unreasonable to say "wow, this is super restrictive and it's not clear why because we have been provided zero explanation" when it is super restrictive by any prior standard. 

It also seems super weird in a system where the units most likely to be impacted must be taken in size intervals that are extremely unfriendly to the new rules. Why is the break point 5 models, when so many of the models most seriously impacted are 3 or 6 model units that cannot be taken in 5 mans to mitigate the harshness of the system? This suggests either remarkable carelessness, or a deliberate choice to make units on 40mm and larger (and even 32mm and larger to some degree) bad, which is difficult to understand. 

[KrispyXIV]

2 minutes ago, Reinholt said:

That's not an accurate representation of what I said at all, though.

What I specifically said was this:

1. The new coherency rules, by being more intricate about the value of small distances, make the game significantly slower. This is a factual statement, backed up by other people who have started using / thinking about them and by 40k, which I also play.
2. The interaction of >25mm base sizes, coherency for 5+ units, and 1" or less weapon ranges produce some very weird outcomes for units such that taking them in any size larger than 5 is almost certainly going to be sub-optimal in all circumstances because you do not get horde discounts. You pay full price for the damage output of a unit that can never bring that damage output to bear, and because there is not a unit cap, 2x3 will outperform 1x6 in virtually all circumstances even if you literally stand them together as a single "unit".
3. In the cases where unit sizes do not work (Gluttons are a perfect example here because Leadbelchers and Mournfangs both also exist as battleline in better configurations where in the new rules they dominate Gluttons in all facets and thus Gluttons basically should not ever be used), you may have totally obsoleted some units.

If that's game design working as intended, I think someone needs to have a word with GW's game designers about what their customers want, which is probably not materially slower games with less choice of models. If it's not intentional, I suggest they fix it.

If you disagree, I want to know specifically what you disagree with that I said. Do you think the new coherency rules are faster? Do you think it's good for a game where shooting and magic already dominated most melee to have even less efficient melee and more efficient shooting? Do you think the coherency rules are buffing melee in some way I have missed? Do you think people want slower games with less model choice?

I'm genuinely curious what the actual rebuttal here is rather than "git good", because that's not my concern (and my tournament army is shootcast, which is already one of the big winners in the new meta, in my view), rather my concern is I think the impact of the changes will be negative play experience, especially for newer players and less competitive players.

I think the new coherency rules result in more compact, less strung out units that move as a more cohesive whole - giving the game a more regimented and structured feel and narrative.  

It also seems intended to make things less fiddly, by discouraging gamey positioning and encouraging you to go more blobby. Most of the issues - including slowness - tend to arise when people are trying to get around the implied limitations of the new coherency and get all of the models to be able to attack, as opposed to the obvious/intuitive subset that isn't being positioned for the purpose of maintaining coherency.  

I think there's likely a legitimate case to be made that with the new coherency rules, large based models without reach capable of fighting in two ranks deserve some sort of discount/cost advantage if they're only able to be taken at 6+, but that's not a fundamental rules problem - that's a costing tweak and should be born out with testing.  

It's not helped by arguing that units are non-functional or unplayable- theyre likely just overcosted.  

[yukishiro1]

2 minutes ago, Andalf said:

It’s not about “git good” it’s fundamentally about “things have changed.”  It’s called adapting.

"Things have changed" isn't an answer to "why did things change in this way?"

[Andalf]

I don’t bother asking why, that’s honestly too trivial.  This is a game, we’re not curing cancer.  Honesty tho, 9 man ogor units snaking around and getting full frontage has always felt oppressive when I fought against it.  Especially because it never ends their.  With all the new layers in All out Attack and Defense these units would be bonkers.  Gluttons can hit on a 3+ now.  That makes up for quite a bit of the damage lost if you play your cards right.  They can bring back a full model with some lucky sixes.  The thing is, I think, that people want this game to be easy.  They want to point and click and walk away.  All of the things I’m hearing are “oh no, I have to actually consider the position I’m in while I’m moving models into combat.”

Edited June 22, 2021 by Andalf

[yukishiro1]

7 minutes ago, KrispyXIV said:

It also seems intended to make things less fiddly, by discouraging gamey positioning and encouraging you to go more blobby. Most of the issues - including slowness - tend to arise when people are trying to get around the implied limitations of the new coherency and get all of the models to be able to attack, as opposed to the obvious/intuitive subset that isn't being positioned for the purpose of maintaining coherency.  

If this is the intent, they've managed to do precisely the opposite of what they were intended. Saying the problem is that people are trying to make the most out of the rules they are presented is a bit strange. People will always try to make the most out of the rules available to them. If the result of the rules is the exact opposite of the intent, that's a problem with the rules, not with the users. 

More fundamentally, if they were trying to make things less fiddly...cloud coherency is the typical solution to this that you see all over most games other than GW games. It would be so interesting if GW would actually come out and make a statement about why they think this "w/in X" of X models" system is superior to the system most other games use to address this issue, which is much less fiddly and easier to use. What's the advantage of GW coherency? Maybe there is one, but if there is, it isn't obvious, and GW doesn't seem to have any interest in enlightening us. 

Edited June 22, 2021 by yukishiro1

[KrispyXIV]

1 minute ago, yukishiro1 said:

If this is the intent, they've managed to do precisely the opposite of what they were intended. Saying the problem is that people are trying to make the most out of the rules they are presented is a bit strange. People will always try to make the most out of the rules available to them. If the result of the rules is the exact opposite of the intent, that's a problem with the rules, not with the users. 

If you try to break Something, and it breaks, is that a flaw with the Thing?

I dont believe they targeted these rules at the folks who are willing to math out the best way to get six large ovals all into combat without breaking coherency with 1" melee - I believe they wanted you to keep 2 behind the others.

[yukishiro1]

8 minutes ago, KrispyXIV said:

If you try to break Something, and it breaks, is that a flaw with the Thing?

I dont believe they targeted these rules at the folks who are willing to math out the best way to get six large ovals all into combat without breaking coherency with 1" melee - I believe they wanted you to keep 2 behind the others.

Well, in the context of a competitive game...yes, it is a flaw in the thing? If the way you wrote your rules allows people to "break" them by actually encouraging the precise opposite of what you intended, you need to fix the rules. And this is what GW does in practice. It doesn't keep broken things in the game and just tell people not to do that thing because it isn't intended, it fixes its rules to not be broken any more. 

Saying the problem is just that the models made junk by this rule need to be reduced in points is not wrong per se, but it seems odd. Do we really want bargain basement ogors because they can't fight effectively because of the rules of the game don't allow them to? Shouldn't we just, well, fix said rules of the game so they can fight effectively? Wouldn't that be the more satisfying fix? 

This is why it all comes back to the "why." Why was this change made? Was it actually intended to gimp models on 40mm+ bases? If so, why did they want to gimp these units? If not, why not just use cloud coherency instead, as it accomplishes the same thing re: curtailing daisy chains, without gimping these models at the same time? 

Edited June 22, 2021 by yukishiro1

[Andalf]

Most of these units take one casualty and now you can pile in wherever you like.  If you’re going big your intentions are to have the ability to take a round or two of Hurricane Crossbows or 9 spirit flasks to the face and still have a unit big enough to swing and use Inspiring Presence.  

[yukishiro1]

Why should they have to take a casualty before being able to function effectively? Isn't that a really weird way to structure your rules? 

[KrispyXIV]

6 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

Well, in the context of a competitive game...yes, it is a flaw in the thing? If the way you wrote your rules allows people to "break" them by actually encouraging the precise opposite of what you intended, you need to fix the rules. And this is what GW does in practice. It doesn't keep broken things in the game and just tell people not to do that thing because it isn't intended, it fixes its rules to not be broken any more. 

 

No one's saying the rules are perfect and can't be fixed or improved.  

I'm saying that if you play it as intended, it's not slow (because you're not fiddling trying to maximize things overly, or you're not taking units large enough for it to matter that don't compensate somehow) and its not really a NPE.  

By all means, they should fix things to "lock in" the intent.  

Besides though- in most other games I've played competitive communities will rapidly identify edge cases, and eventually get to the point of accepting some things by declaration.  If it's possible to set up a unit such that six large models can get into combat and everyone knows it, approximate it and move on with the understanding of where things are - the same way you would a model that won't fit somewhere because of giant wings or some such.  

Those scenarios should get faster. 

Edited June 22, 2021 by KrispyXIV

[yukishiro1]

But all this is working around the clumsiness of the rule...when they instead could just have not adopted such a clumsy rule in the first place. Especially when there's a standard alternative most other games use that address this very issue, without these weird, clunky side effects.

It's just really weird to me that they have gone in the direction of a very geometrically complex "solution" that creates so many problems of its own, when there are no apparent benefits to that approach. This is why some developer commentary on this rule would be so useful. We're all flailing around in the dark here trying to figure out what GW's intent was, when they could have just told us. 

Edited June 22, 2021 by yukishiro1

[Andalf]

This isn’t complex geometry... like really.  It’s to stop strings of 30+ models and incentivize taking more smaller units and a balanced TAC approach to your list building.  Units of 15 Blood Knights without coherency is NPE.

Edited June 22, 2021 by Andalf

[yukishiro1]

To use the example given of 9 ogors, keeping 9 40mm models w/in 1" of 2 other models while also maximizing frontage against another unit that can be positioned in any number of different ways is definitely complex geometry. In fact, it's so complex that most people won't even try and will just settle for mushing them together. But if you actually try to maximize your efficiency, it becomes extraordinarily complex. 

[Andalf]

No it isn’t.  It’s obvious.  It’s 5 up front and 4 in the back.  Done.  That’s the point.  There is no further maximization of efficiency for those units.  It’s a good thing.  Now they can count on most units only being able to get that many models in unless everybody is flying wide formations and smashing up in the middle of the table.  It’s easier to measure what a unit is actually going to do on a per round basis this way, therefore easier to scale units in each other balance wise.

Edited June 22, 2021 by Andalf

[yukishiro1]

Against an infinitely long, flat, evenly spaced enemy unit? Yes, sure. But the minute you start getting into real world conditions, it becomes more complex than that, whether you are inclined to admit it or not. 

If the purpose is to stop 15 man units of blood knights...why not just not allow that in the first place? Seems like a hammer for a scalpel sort of situation. Did anybody really think it was a big problem that 6 ogors could fight in a line? 

Edited June 22, 2021 by yukishiro1

[KrispyXIV]

1 minute ago, yukishiro1 said:

Against an infinitely long, flat, evenly spaced enemy unit? Yes, sure. But the minute you start getting into real world conditions, it becomes more complex than that, whether you are inclined to admit it or not. 

Howso, exactly?

Yes, in theory it's mathematically possible you could do better than that - but you're almost certainly not supposed to.  

You're probably supposed to fill in a second rank to support the first, and just roll with it. 

[Andalf]

...but that interaction that you’re saying is a waste of time is actually the tactics that the player needs to utilize to make their units do the job they want.  Sorry Yuki, there are no ‘real world conditions’ that I’m not taking into account.  My 30 blob skeletons still bounced off 10 Sequitors, crazy 6” pile in units to swamp enemies HAVE to use what you’re saying is too hard to understand to work.  I really don’t understand what you’re saying anymore.

[yukishiro1]

4 minutes ago, KrispyXIV said:

Howso, exactly?

Yes, in theory it's mathematically possible you could do better than that - but you're almost certainly not supposed to.  

You're probably supposed to fill in a second rank to support the first, and just roll with it. 

Ah, so we're back to the "yes, that's true, but you shouldn't actually do it because you're not supposed to do that and if you do that or your opponent does that you're playing the game wrong." 

I think we just have a fundamental difference of opinion here. I think if the rules reward fiddly movement that's a problem with the rules, you think it's a problem with the players doing something you view as unintended. I don't think either of us is going to come around to the other person's view on this one. 

 

Edited June 22, 2021 by yukishiro1

[relic456]

1 minute ago, KrispyXIV said:

Howso, exactly?

Yes, in theory it's mathematically possible you could do better than that - but you're almost certainly not supposed to.  

You're probably supposed to fill in a second rank to support the first, and just roll with it. 

Just to make sure I'm understanding your position here. You're acknowledging that there is a mathematically superior way of arranging your models, that may take extended periods of time, but that the player is supposed to ignore that fact? 

If the design intent was to not have something happen, then the rules should be written so that thing doesn't happen. It's bad design to just leave a mathematically superior option and just hope that players don't do that thing.